Spellwright

Nicodemus struck her over the head with the Numinous lattice. The crystalline spell locked around the gargoyle’s mind, causing her to freeze in an unlikely pose-one knee and one foot on the floor, both hands reaching skyward. She began to fall forward.

Uttering an oath, Nicodemus extemporized a simple Magnus sentence to catch her. With a few more sentences, he lifted her up and then leaned her against the bookshelf.

As far as he knew, no one had seen him chasing the gargoyle around the courtyard with a tapestry. For that, he said a prayer of thanks to the Creator.

Then he looked at the gargoyle and said in a voice that was soft and sincere, “You stupid, suffering construct. What have I done to you?”

“Fused her Numinous cortices,” a rumbling voice replied.

Nicodemus’s blood froze. “Magister!” he whispered as a figure moved out of a dark corner.

Grand Wizard Agwu Shannon stepped into a bar of blue moonlight. The glow illuminated white dreadlocks, a short beard and mustache, tawny skin. His nose was large and hooked, his thin lips pressed flat in disapproval.

However, Shannon’s eyes commanded the most attention. They presented neither iris nor pupil but were everywhere pure white. These were eyes blind to the mundane world but extraordinarily perceptive of magical text.

Nicodemus sputtered. “Magister, I didn’t think you’d be working so late. I was just going-”

The grand wizard stopped him by nodding to the gargoyle. “Who else knows?”

“No one. I was reshelving in the Stacks alone. I was just going to edit her.”

Shannon grunted and then looked in Nicodemus’s direction. “She shouldn’t have let you touch her. What was your bribe?”

Nicodemus felt as if he were breathing through a reed. “Two stone more weight and secondary cognition.”

The grand wizard walked to the gargoyle and squatted beside her. “She already has secondary cognition.”

“But that’s impossible; I never used a modification scroll on her.”

“Look at this frontal cortex.” The grand wizard pointed.

Nicodemus went to Shannon’s side, but lacking his teacher’s vision, he saw only the monkey’s stone forehead.

“There’s some inappropriate fusion, but…” Shannon muttered. Using only the muscles in his right hand, the grand wizard produced a tiny storm of golden sentences. Faster than Nicodemus could follow, the spell split the gargoyle’s head and began to rearrange her executive subspells.

Nicodemus pursed his lips. “She said she was primary, and the librarians assigned her to reshelving; they only use primary gargoyles for that.”

Shannon brought his left hand up to assist his manipulation of the gargoyle’s Numinous passages. “How long did you touch her?”

“No more than a few moments,” Nicodemus insisted. He was about to say more when Shannon clapped the monkey’s head together and pulled the Numinous lattice from her head as if it were a tablecloth.

The gargoyle sank to all fours and looked up at Shannon. Her blank stone eyes searched his face. “I could have a name now,” she said in a quick, childlike voice.

Shannon’s nod sent his white dreadlocks swaying. “But I wouldn’t pick one just yet. Get used to your new thoughts first.”

She smiled and then, dreamily, nodded.

Shannon stood and looked toward Nicodemus. “What was it you wrapped her in?”

“A tapestry,” Nicodemus said weakly. “From the Stacks.”

Shannon sighed and turned back to the gargoyle. “Please re-hang that tapestry and finish reshelving. Use the rest of the night to name yourself.”

The energized gargoyle nodded eagerly then scooped up the tapestry and scampered out the door.

“Magister, I-” Nicodemus stopped as Shannon turned to face him.

The old man was dressed in the billowing black robes of a grand wizard. Even in the dim moonlight, the lining of his large hood shone white, indicating that he was a linguist. Silver and gold buttons ran down his sleeves, signifying his fluency in Numinous and Magnus.

Shannon’s blind gaze was turned slightly away, but when he spoke, Nicodemus felt as if the old man was staring through his body to his soul.

“My boy, you surprise me. As a younger spellwright, I bribed a few constructs, even got into hot water with overly ambitious texts. But your disability places a special burden on us both. I keenly want you to earn a lesser hood, but if another wizard had seen that misspelled gargoyle… well, it would have ended your hopes of escaping apprenticeship and made life harder for the other cacographers.”

“Yes, Magister.”

Shannon sighed. “I will continue fighting for your hood, but only if there won’t be a repetition of such… carelessness.”

Nicodemus looked at his boots. “There won’t be, Magister.”

The old man began to walk back to his desk. “And why in the Creator’s name did you touch the gargoyle?”

“I didn’t mean to. I was editing text into her when there was a crash. Then it sounded like someone was running on the roof. It made me accidentally touch the gargoyle.”

Shannon stopped. “When was this?”

“Maybe half an hour ago.”

The grand wizard turned to face him. “Tell me everything.”